THE 25 cent books......!

[Dr-Doom]

Where and how to obtain large amounts of those .25 cent books at conventions? I made a thread awhile back about wanting to start doing conventions and am trying to find out how to acquire a large number of books to sell for a quarter. Obviously, I can't buy a ton for .25 and then sell them for the same as there'd be no money there, so how do you Con-Vendors get these books? Do you craigslist a large collection for cheap???

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

Here are the simple steps comic dealers can take toward achieving financial freedom with quarter books.

 

1). Buy them for your store at your standard Diamond discount for $1.25-$1.95 each.

 

2). Watch them languish on the shelves for months without a buyer. Pay employees to stock them.

 

3). Watch them languish in the back issue bins for months/years without a buyer. Pay employees to bag + board, price, and inventory them.

 

4). Take them to a show, where after paying for tables, hotel, gas, food, etc., you blow them out for a quarter each, keeping the loss at roughly $1.50 per issue.

 

5). Call Tony Robbins and ask him if he wants to be the pitchman for this most awesome of money making programs.

 

[VintageComics]

Where and how to obtain large amounts of those .25 cent books at conventions? I made a thread awhile back about wanting to start doing conventions and am trying to find out how to acquire a large number of books to sell for a quarter. Obviously, I can't buy a ton for .25 and then sell them for the same as there'd be no money there, so how do you Con-Vendors get these books? Do you craigslist a large collection for cheap???

 

You're asking how people find books that they sell for a living?

 

Lots of hard work, networking, pavement pounding, internet surfing and cleaning out warehouses and closed comic stores. Oh, and you need cash to be able to buy the books as soon as you find them or someone else will.

 

I wouldn't expect a bunch of people to answer here with replies giving you exact contact information of where they buy their books from. That would be business suicide for the people who are in the business of finding and selling those books.

 

Long story short it takes a little time and effort searching them out and being in the right place at the right time with cash in pocket.

 

 

[Snake Eyes]

Here are the simple steps comic dealers can take toward achieving financial freedom with quarter books.

 

1). Buy them for your store at your standard Diamond discount for $1.25-$1.95 each.

 

2). Watch them languish on the shelves for months without a buyer. Pay employees to stock them.

 

3). Watch them languish in the back issue bins for months/years without a buyer. Pay employees to bag + board, price, and inventory them.

 

4). Take them to a show, where after paying for tables, hotel, gas, food, etc., you blow them out for a quarter each, keeping the loss at roughly $1.50 per issue.

 

5). Call Tony Robbins and ask him if he wants to be the pitchman for this most awesome of money making programs.

 

 

Now that is damn funny

[shadroch]

Be the last fan at a show, approach the fattest dealer there and make him an offer so that he doesn't have to carry all those heavy boxes of books back to his car. Chances are he has a lot more stuff in his garage so letting you have a few boxes of books he couldn't sell for fifty cents for a dime a pop might appeal to him.

Do it early enough that you can repeat the drill with other dealers if he turns you down.

Be sure they know you will not be setting up at the next show as competition for them.

DO NOT wave money at him while negotiating. I can't speak for others, but that tactic turns me off big time.

[dupont2005]

Buy out people's collections for cheap. Keep an eye on Craigslist

[FlyingDonut]

I work my off.

[Warlord]

Where and how to obtain large amounts of those .25 cent books at conventions? I made a thread awhile back about wanting to start doing conventions and am trying to find out how to acquire a large number of books to sell for a quarter. Obviously, I can't buy a ton for .25 and then sell them for the same as there'd be no money there, so how do you Con-Vendors get these books? Do you craigslist a large collection for cheap???

 

Haven't there been sales in the Marketplace thread where sellers were offering long boxes at $25-35 a box or so?

 

For starters, why not post there, offering to buy in bulk at $x/box and see if you get any responses?

[Dr-Doom]

great ideas in here. Obviously I am not wanting anyone to give me their 'trade' secrets, I don't even care about making money, I just want to be able to go to cons and participate!

[the blob]

Needless to say, you probably need to get your acquisition cost under 5 cents a book for this to work.

 

Personally, I don't see anyone selling 25 cent books at shows around me (NYC) anymore, but I don't hit some of the smaller tri-state area shows, so perhaps the shows I go to are too expensive per table to sell this stuff. 50 cents is the cheapest I see.

 

Problem is, even at 5 cents, the stuff has to really fly to work at 25 cents if this is going to be a profit-making venture and a lot of what you'd be picking up that cheap isn't just going to sell at 25 cents or even 10 cents. Nobody wants Warriors of Plasm, various 90's image titles, valiant titles circa 1994 or whatever at virtually any price. The same can be said for plenty of Marvels/DCs of this era.

 

Think about it...bring 20 long boxes (2 tables, top and on floor) (about 6,000-7,000 comics if they aren't with boards)....I'd think selling 20% of them at any given show at 25 cents each would be a phenomenal sell through, no? so we're talking about 1200-1400 comics sold...so $300-$350 in sales...gas (parking?) and misc. costs you $20 let's say and let's say it's a cheap local show and the tables are $40 each. so we're down to $200-$250. and your cost is $60-$70. so your take at the end of the day is under $200. I guess this would be o.k....but then again, a 20% sell-through is extremely optimistic for drek. 10% is perhaps more likely. so now we're closer to $100... I have local comic shops that have decent stuff in 5/$1 boxes and it's not like they're selling tons.

 

Obviously those sell-through rates are pulled out of thin air. Last time I sold 25 cent books was helping a friend at the 1995(?) con at Javitz, which was a huge affair, and he actually had good 25 cent books (hey, stuff like Web of Spiderman 2 and X-Men 1 (gatefold) Wolverine 50... was a good 25 cent book back then) and he might have sold 20-40% of them over the course of 3 days.

 

Yes, if you have good material you'll blow them out at 25 cents...but getting that stuff for 5 cents a pop is easier said than done.

 

Obviously the dynamics change at 50 cents or $1. Personally, I think a majority of what you sell at 25 cents would probably sell at 50 cents as you're getting cherry picked (relatively speaking) at that point, unless you just happen to run into someone looking to put together complete sets of the Valiant universe, Shadowhawk, Supreme, Atari Force and whatever else.

 

Now that I think about it I probably should have taken the drek off that guy's hands if it was free, although I don't know where I would have put them....

 

Anyway, a couple of shops have gone under around me and at least one would have been happy to sell me 20-30 long boxes of drek at $5-10 each (honestly, he might have just given them to me), but I had already picked it clean of anything remotely decent, so I was thinking to myself "this is 2 trips in my car, i have to drag these up multiple flights of stairs...WTF am I going to do with this krap?"

 

Basically, there's a ton of krap out there, it's easy enough to find cheap enough, but whether after paying for gas, tables, etc. there's any real profit in selling them for 25 cents (and paying 5) is another story. I think what you see more of at shows is someone with a spare 30 boxes of junk that used to be 3/$1, 50 cent or $1 box stuff and it has been picked clean of "better stuff" and they just want to unload some bulk and free up some space in their lives ...perhaps to buy the next 30 boxes of krap that will be picked clean at somewhat higher prices...rinse, repeat, etc. But maybe I'm wrong.

[the blob]

In chatting with a local shop owner it seems that big dealers will often make an offer of like 5 cents a book for everything in the store...including the vintage material that is worth something (or at least that's the offer he got and I'd estimate 20% of the store was BA or earlier). I know my friend bought out a store for 10 cents a book, but that was in the early 90s when the stuff was a lot more sellable. now Dunno how well that method works with ebay as an outlet for shop owners, but I guess it means the big dealers don't see any profit in paying 5 cents a book for general drek, they need to get a % of books that are worth more thana couple of bucks each.

[shadroch]

I have a guy who calls me at least once a month offering me seven cents a book for my entire inventory. I tellhim no and he says okay, I'll call back in a few weeks.

[JediTrix]

I have a guy who calls me at least once a month offering me seven cents a book for my entire inventory. I tellhim no and he says okay, I'll call back in a few weeks.

 

 

Right there Paithetic! Offer shadroch eight cents a book!

[the blob]

In sum and substance, unless the books are free or you already are stuck with a garage full of them and you want to get rid of them, it doesn't seem like being a 25 cent comic guy at shows is a great busines. Honestly, if you want to do shows and net $100 a day for your effort (hey, it's more fun than getting a second job as a fry chef on the weekends for $7 an hour), selling somewhat better material seems to make more sense and has more upside (and takes up less room!). You can always put 25 cent books on the floor and have $1 or better books on top of the table?

[Hamlet]

I always assumed that no one actually went looking for these books to sell. They just end up with them from buying collections for other books and end up being left with the dregs. Eventually they have so much drek that they feel its worth doing a convention to try to get rid of it.

 

Certainly that happened to me when I bought a few collections (long, long ago).

 

[thedude]

I work my off.

 

you still have a little of it left

[Hey Kids, Comics!]

I fairly frequently see dime books at shows here in the Carolinas. There were multiple dealers at Rick Fortenberry's last Charlotte show that had dime boxes (including Shelton). There's always at least one (usually more) guys at Heroes with tables full of boxes at a dime a pop and they usually get cheaper with a "fill up a long box for $30" or so special.

[the blob]

I fairly frequently see dime books at shows here in the Carolinas. There were multiple dealers at Rick Fortenberry's last Charlotte show that had dime boxes (including Shelton). There's always at least one (usually more) guys at Heroes with tables full of boxes at a dime a pop and they usually get cheaper with a "fill up a long box for $30" or so special.

 

At the start of the day or the last few hours of the show?

 

$700 gets you a three day booth at heroes. That's two 8 foot tables. I guess that's room for 30-40 long boxes of comics (and I guess you can refresh stock if you sell enough stuff) on top and the floor.

 

This doesn't seem like much of a business model except turning one's 50 cent inventory into 10 cent inventory just for the last few hours of a show to get rid of some longies. Starting out at 10 cents or $30 a long box...even if you sell it all, that's $900-$1200, minus $700, minus I dunno what kind of expenses (gas to get there...food...assuming you're local and don't stay at a hotel)

 

OK, yes, I guess it makes some limited sense if the 30-40 boxes are what's left after you've already triaged out/sold all the better material (and made back your money + some) out of the 50-60 box collection/inventory you bought and now you're looking to get rid of the leftovers.

 

So I guess it seems you aren't a "25 cent box dealer", but rather, a dealer who maybe once a year sells stuff that cheap (or less) to clear out inventory, but who has been selling stuff for more over the course of the year.

 

Personally, I think being a 50 cent box guy is much classier.

 

Dollar box guy...that's like as classy as Donald Trump.

[Dr-Doom]

Well truthfully, I'd much rather sell the nice books that the cheapies, but from what i've read online, and talking to people, they all seem to say that the .25 cent books are what people are after. Personally, i'd prefer to go in with some really nice key books, maybe mid-grades that'd be around 100 dollars a piece and try to sell some of those.

 

Thats my biggest gripe with these medium sized cons I go too.....there is never any keys there. Not low grade, mid, or high, all these local dealers bring these books for a quarter and their wall books consist of things that nobody wants, and thats why they always have a "1/2 OFF ALL WALL BOOKS".....its because people don't want them.

 

So ultimately, I want to have a lot of NICE books, and then try to supplement it with some of those books on the table!

[the blob]

Personally I'd rather pay $1 for something I actually want vs. spend $1 for 4 comics I'm buying just because they're cheap, but I've hit the saturation point I guess.